Devices for the protection of ice skate blades have been known in the art for decades. Early skate guard devices, such as those provided in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,686,667 and 3,583,720, employ a simple design involving a single, elongated body, with an upwardly open channel for receiving and housing the blade (or runner) of an ice skate, and a strap such as a metal spring adapted to secure the body to the rear portion of an ice skate blade. Such designs suffer from a number of drawbacks, including the requirement for a significant degree of manual dexterity and the requirement for a large applied force when affixing the guard to a blade and a lack of stability when walking with the guard in place. More importantly, these devices pose a high risk of personal injury to the user while applying the necessary force to secure the guard in place, which could result in laceration of the user's hand across the sharp skate blade.
Recent designs have attempted to improve over the problems associated with the earlier designs by providing a two-piece design, in which front and rear pieces are connected together by an elastic member. An example of such a design in provided in U.S. Pat. No. 5,513,881, in which front and rear pieces, each having an upwardly open channel for receiving an ice skate runner, are connected together by an elastic center piece. Unfortunately, such devices fail to overcome the main problems associated with the initial designs. In particular, the use of an elastic member to secure the guard to the skate causes the user to have to apply significant force to separate the two pieces, while at the same time attempting to accurately place the runner edge into the narrow channel in both the front and rear portions. This complex requirement leads to difficulty in securing the guard to the skate, with the aforementioned problems associated with difficulty and potential hazard.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,941,568 provides an alternative two-piece design in which a rear support block is slidably received in a channel located in an elongated body piece. The rear support piece contains a recess for receiving the rear portion of a runner, and a spring connecting the rear support block to the body piece is employed to bias the support block against the rear portion of the runner. This variation on the aforementioned two-piece design suffers from the many drawbacks noted above, namely the installation and removal is a handheld operation requiring the user to pull back on the rear support block and apply a significant force while attempting to place the runner within the toe section and channel. Additionally, the recessing of the spring below the blade receiving channel in this design produces a high-profile guard that has poor stability when walking. Furthermore, the rear support piece has a fixed profile, and is not adapted for use with different skate and blade types.
Another variation on the two piece guard design is provided in U.S. Pat. No. 4,382,615, which discloses a guard comprising two telescoping pieces. The first and second telescoping pieces, which are locked together when in use, each include an upwardly open channel for receiving the runner, and the rear piece is adapted to receive the heel portion of a runner. The front piece further includes an s-shaped leaf spring for securing the runner in the guard, and, notably, to clamp the runner within the guard during use. To install the guard on a skate, a user may place the guard on the ground, insert the heel portion of the runner into the rear piece, and press downward on the leaf spring with the toe portion until the toe portion bypasses the spring and is clamped in place. This design, while improving on prior art skate guards, disadvantageously requires the user to apply a significant force to separate the runner from the guard due to the clamping force of the leaf spring. Furthermore, the pre-determined geometrical profile of the leaf spring results in a guard that will only be compatible with a limited number of skate types. An additional disadvantage is the lack of support with regard to lateral tilting when installing the guard. Finally, the lack of a guiding means for the insertion of the top portion presents a challenge to the user to quickly and accurately step into the guard.
As noted above, most prior art designs of skate guards also provide poor support to the user when walking with the guard attached to the runner. While some US patents have disclosed guards with rounded toe and heel sections, typical guard designs are extremely thin and suffer from very poor lateral stability when walking. An attempt to provide an improvement in this regard is provided in Canadian Patent No. 2,169,774, which teaches a simple guard that essentially comprises a block with an internal channel for housing the blade, with straps for attaching the block to the skate. This design has numerous drawbacks, and is very heavy and cumbersome, which can actually lead to increased difficulty when walking.
Therefore, it is readily apparent that skate guards disclosed in the prior art are chiefly designed with the goal of protecting the blade rather than protecting the user. Despite the improvements cited above, the prior art fails to provide a skate guard that is easily installed onto, and removed from, a skate. In particular, all prior art designs involve the application of a significant force between the runner and the guard that must be overcome when installing and removing the guard, with little or no lateral support when walking. This leads to difficulty and a risk of personal injury, especially for children. What is therefore needed is a design that enables a skate guard to be easily installed and removed by the user and provides support to the user when walking.